My new article on Incorporating Part-Time Team Members is on Stickyminds.com.In one of my workshops I run a simulation on distibuted and part-time teams. The dynamics for the part-timers are almost always the same. People who work part time may want to fit into the...
The other morning had an early flight from the west coast to Minneapolis. There wasn’t a line at the check in counter, so I walked right up to the self-checkin kiosk. As I approached, a woman wearing an airline uniform approached me. “Let me help...
Interesting post from Bob Sutton on the obsession with individual talent, and the evidence that people are more productive when they build relationships and work togeher over time.
Someone recently described this situation on the Scrum Development list: “…we’ve found some members of the Scrum team working extra intensely to cover for poor performing people. For example, if the strongest developer pairs frequently with the...
Someone recently asked, “How would you go about inculcating the results from retrospectives [sic] back into the culture for the benefit of future projects?”There are two different approaches depending on whether the team holds retrospectives as they go, at...
A friend and I were talking about getting fired the other day. In my experience, most people who are fired are not unskilled or incompetent. They may be in the wrong job, which means there’s a poor fit between the skills, domain knowledge, preferences, and...
I’ve pointed out in a few posts that the environment (system, processes, structures, culture) and management are a huge factor in performance in organizaitons. And they are. But sometimes, it is an individual problem.Like this woman who works in a health care...
Mike Kelly has a nice post on diluting the power of appreciation. My experience is that genuine appreciations can transform many situations. A couple of years ago I led a year-long project with a distributed team–no two members were in the same timezone....
Johanna has been blogging about finding candidates who have experience with agile methods. So I’ve been thinking about the “typical” resume sifting process and how that might work/not work when you’re looking for candidates who have worked on...
Why do people fail to do what they are supposed to do? We’re quick to pin the blame on individuals, when it may be a system problem or a management problem. So to list just a few of the reasons some one might not be doing his/her job (or some aspect of it): They...
In reponse to yesterday’s post, Ken Flowers commented: …I’ve wondered if there are times when the retrospective should call out blame. That is, on some projects the real problem is that someone didn’t do their job. I believe that this kind of...
Recently someone asked how to avoid the blame game in retrospectives.Here are three things you can do.1) Establish working agreements (sometimes called “ground rules”) at the beginning of the retrospective. These are contracts the group members make with...
“Our prevailing system of management has destroyed our people. People are born with intrinsic motivation, self-respect, dignity, curiosity to learn, joy in learning. The forces of destruction begin with toddlers–a prize for the best halloween costume,...
A while back I was on a roll about Jerks at Work.I still hear people justifying jerk behavior because “he’s a star” or “she’s a creative type” or ….Bottom line is that jerks cost your company.Bob Sutton was interviewed on NPR...
In response to my post Sorry Jack, Jason Yip mentioned the book Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management. I bought myself a copy and have been enjoying a good read. Pfeffer and Sutton don’t directly address...
Pete Deemer shared a retrospective story on the Scrum Development list today:”I was doing a retrospective with a team that’s about 2 months / 3 sprints into scrum. Coming into the retrospective the team seemed to be feeling pretty low – they had yet to hit...
I picked up my new glasses last week–my first pair of progressives. The opticians warned me that it would take time to adjust to the lenses, cautioned me to be patient, extracted a promise to stick with the lenses for at least two weeks.They prepared me for the...
Diana quotes about a story (via Brian Robertson’s blog) about “getting people to change.” “A colleague of mine spoke at a big leadership conference many years back. It was one of these big things where they had ex-presidents, Jack Welch and other big names...
